Dallas Mavericks’ Rick Carlisle Ejected From Game For Kicking Ball

Kick a ball in the NFL, score a field goal. Kick a ball in the NBA, get ejected; this isn’t the NFL, Rick. In case you missed it or just didn’t hear anything about it, Mavericks’ coach Rick Carlisle got a little heated recently. Usually when I get mad I just chill to some smooth jazz, but what does Rick do? He decides to kick the game ball into the audience and hit someone in the head; smooth move, ex-coach. . .er, X-lax, yeah, that’s what I meant.

http://youtu.be/YdyMSvH-iOg

After he kicked the ball, relieving stress, he saw the err of his ways and approached the dazed audience member, apologizing for his mistake. Apologies aside, though, the referees decided to eject Rick from the game for his angry deed. According to one source, Rick later released an apology for his actions stating:

“I want to apologize to our franchise, Mark [Cuban], our fans,” Carlisle said after the game. “The incident where the ball got kicked into the stands — that can’t happen. My intent was not to kick it into the stands, I was trying to kick it to the referee, but I’m not a very good kicker. But, that can’t happen; the officials made the right call on that one. That’s a regrettable situation.”